DATELINE: BRYANT AVENUE SOUTH, JUST SOUTH OF LAKE STREET WEST - it was another interesting night at Triviasco... and another *successful* night at Triviasco, with our 20 point total giving us first place. Allison and I had just stopped at the SuperAmerica to peruse the snacks and find the perfect Coke for Aaron and were continuing our debrief of the previous couple hours at Country Bar as we approached my parked car, whereupon I realised my pockets were empty and my keys weren't in my man purse. "Oh," I thought, "I must have left them in the booth - Allison handed me the purse and I didn't even think to pick up my keys!" so back to Country Bar we went. I was already running late for karaoke so another few minutes weren't gonna kill me anyway. What DID kill me was arriving at Country Bar and discovering that the booth was cleaned out and nobody on the staff had picked up my keys. We moved all the benches to see if they'd fallen along the side out of sight - no dice. This was the point where I started to panic. Could I have placed them on the counter of the SuperAmerica? We headed back after I left my number at Country Bar in case somebody turned them in later. The counterperson at SA remembered us but there definitely weren't any lost keys. How exactly could I lose this GIANT string of keys? It'd had been just over two and a half hours - now going on three hours since we'd parked - if I'd dropped them, was there ANY chance they'd still be wherever I'd left them? But the car was still there! If someone had found them, they weren't smart enough to figure out how to unlock my car and drive off with it, at least. Maybe they were still ON the car? Could I have just left them on top of the car? I remembered getting out and posing for an Instagram selfie with Allison in the mirror-like windows of the building we'd parked alongside...could I have put them down when I took my own photo with my phone? Were they on the sidewalk, curb, street? Feels like somebody would have seen them and grabbed them, though. This IS Uptown, albeit one of the quieter blocks just off Lake in Uptown... I thought about checking Craigslist and seeing if anybody had already posted about them. Finally we made our way back to the car so we could do a close sweep around it. I looked at the driver's side door and felt my heart skip when I noticed it was unlocked. Hmmmmmm. I opened the door....and the little "ping" reminder that was supposed to warn me that I was leaving my keys IN THE IGNITION immediately started going off. So, yes, I managed to leave my keys in the ignition of my unlocked car from around 7.30 on a Thursday night almost three hours and NOBODY noticed, including your narrator. Somehow ALSO, nobody drove off with it (maybe they didn't know how to drive a stick) OR steal my Ray-bans or "now a collectors edition" magic iPod nano. I hadn't felt older for a long time. I ALSO hadn't felt like I'd burned off a lot of karma, but I was glad I'd had it to spend. I did turn to Allison and say "well... at least it'll eventually make a pretty good Facebook status." I guess what I'm trying to say is hey, here's exactly 600 words about why I was late to karaoke. Thanks again for reading.